Very few people are aware that Gershon Salomon, the veteran activist of the Temple Mount Faithful, is the scion of an old Jerusalemite family of millers. The preservation folder of a simple-looking house in the heart of Jerusalem’s Nahlaot neighborhood tells their story.

1 Ramah St. A small, uninteresting, one-story Jerusalem stone structure with one corrugated iron wall. What is worth preserving here?

This may not be an architectural gem, but it is definitely a slice of history. The original late nineteenth century structure, which stands at the corner of Ramah Street and Ben Neriya Street, was built in what was then a totally undeveloped area. The building was originally constructed as a flour mill – one of the city’s first mechanical mills. A water cistern was dug out beneath the building and a wooden hut that served as a stable stood adjacent to the stone and tile-roofed building.

The mill was part of an initiative on the part of the Old Yishuv to expand Jewish neighborhoods beyond the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. The flour mill was originally set up by Shlomo Yaakov Salomon, a grandson of R. Avrahan Shlomo Zalman Zoref, who had immigrated from Lithuania in 5571 (1811) together with other followers of the Vilna Gaon. He became a pillar of Jerusalem’s Ashkenazi community, and a key player in the efforts to rebuild the Hurva synagogue – which ultimately cost him his life (Yoel Moshe Salomon was another grandson of R. Zoref). Shlomo Yaakov Salomon erected a flour mill in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The Ramban Synagogue, which was not then in use as a synagogue, served as a warehouse for the mill.